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no, its not. It seems to me that you're trying to read this as if it happened all at once, and I apologize if I am wrong. You need to take this like you would a history book, that there's a chronological(sp?) order. Abraham had Sarah for a wife, but she couldn't have children. So she asked him to sleep with her servant Hagar in the hopes of starting a family from her, which was bad(different subject). After Ishmael, Sarah was able to give birth to Isaac. What happened to Ismael, however, is a mystery. But my guess would be that he ran off somewhere, but I don't know. After Sarah died, Abraham got the other wife and had those other 6 or so sons. God's word cannot and will not contradict itself.

I never said that Ishmael died. Genesis 21 says that when Hagar and Ishmael were sent away by Sarah(I would ask you to read this and make sure that I'm sourcing it right), and the angel of God called to her.
17"God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from Heaven and said to her, 'What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid,; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there.'" 18 " 'Lift the boy up and take him by his hand, for I will make him into a great nation.'"
You were right that Isaac wasn't Abraham's only son, but Isaac was the only son that was still living with him. It may sound like the same argument, but it's not. Just, really look at it before you make any judgements, please?

Yes and no. I believe all the authors were guided by God to write what they did. However, it was created by man so there's a chance there's a small margin of error, especially when you then add in translation from the ancient Greek and Hebrew to modern day English. It's all to be taken seriously. Your instance was something like a difference in a number which wasn't really all that relevant to the actual story. You'll find that I really don't care about details, I'm simply more interested in the big picture. That's the kind of faith I have, but it differs from person to person.

I wouldn't say Moses killed loads of people as soon as he came down from the moutain. Yeah, there was that wandering in the desert thing, but well... it was Genesis. And admittedly it's been over a year since I really studied that book and I've slept since then, so I'm not going to make any claims to anything until I have a chance to go back and reread the scripture...

It was divinely inspired but you have to account for the fact that humans were writting and humans screw up. Just because some minor details in the message may have gotten mixed up, doesn't mean God not perfect.

That scripture from Hosea seems like one of those arguments where you take scripture out of contents and munipulate it to say what you want. I'll check up on the passage later, I'm short on time.

The Old testement was nutty, that's all I have to say xD As I said, I haven't studied Genesis in a long time, so I'm not gonna make an important statements until I've gotten the chance to look it over again.

First bit: It depends on what you believe. Some people believe that since it was divinely inspired, even though it was created by man it's still perfect. I account for a small margin of error, as I've said. However, I don't think it's so flawed as to take away from what we can learn from the Bible. I mean, does it really matter if 500 or 600 men died? In the long run, no. It really irks me when people get caught up on the itty bitty details that really aren't contributing to anything, they're just there.

Second: I'm way too lazy to look it up now. We recently studied Hosea in my Bible study but... I didn't do my reading so all I really remember was "Don't go a-whoring." Althought I will say Hosea is basically a giant extended metaphore. Hosea is comparing his adulterous wife to Israel, since at the time Israel was worshipping other gods and God was not very happy about it. But I need to check into the content of that scripture.

Third: Yeah, the OT is kinda crazy. But you also have to consider that it spans a longer period of time and is much older than the NT. A lot of what it deals with is related to the culture and time period it was written in. It was definitly divinely inspired, but it requires more research to understand than the NT. Or I think so anyway.

I know I'd get the first response, and yeah, it sucks they died but to the study of what the scripture is trying to tell us, it doesn't matter. The point it still made regardless of the number.

And I would say having an understanding of the time the OT was written, as well as Ancient Hebrew helps. I didn't really how much we miss on that otherwise until I took my Bible study last year sweatdrop Anyway, the Cyclopse was supposedly something physical, God isn't.

You know what irks me the most about people who quote scripture? They tend to use selective bits and pieces that by themselves make no sense, for their own purpose. Instead of reading the whole context and understanding the point of it, they rather use incomplete pieces to make themselves feel good about their beliefs. The Bible as a whole does not contradict itself!!! But hey, if you want to be all nit-picky about a couple verses, then fine. Just don't whine to me about it.
Here's the facts about the Bible: Although we don't have any of the original manuscripts, we do have 24,000 handwritten copies or portions of New Testament scripture that exist todaywritten in Greek, Latin and other languages. Some of these were copied within 35-160 years of the originals. The original text was writen within 30-50 years of the actual event. Some confirm now that parts of the Book Mark were written within 17 years. This means that plenty of eyewitnesses were alive to stop the spread of "disinformation" when it started if it were untrue. The first accounts of Buddha's life were written within 700 years after his death. Earliest copies of Caesar's writings we have were written 950 years after the originals. Plato's 1,250 after the original.
From the 24,000 NT manuscripts, only 40 lines are in question. Most of these variances are spelling, phrasing, and simular types of differences. That's 1/5 of 1% in question-out of 24,000! 99.8% of the time, it's the same thing. The Old Testament is pretty much a big history book, talking about geneologies and battles that took place. I'm going to cut this short, so if anyone has more questions-don't hesitate to ask.

It doesn't say that "600=300", nor should it really matter. The point should be who won the battle(if it was during one) or what was the reason for the killing. In history books, do they tell you how many men were killed? No, they tell you who won the war/battle. The numbers are there for possible personal interest, or to keep detailed records of what happened. If this wasn't what you were talking about, then I apologize. What were you talking about, then?
As for the second bit you quoted, my point was that in over 1,500 years, in 66 books, by 40 authors, in 3 languages, over 3 continents-the message was still the same. I was just trying to show the Bible's reliability.
Yes. Bear in mind, though, that the only real differences were spelling errors and different phrasings. The message never changed. And I never intended to make the argument that "information and interpretation was lost as time passed", because I never agreed with it. I do put my complete faith and trust in what the Bible says; I don't trust anyone or anything that much.